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Gastro888, I don't make my own gochujang. My korean friends give me a lot of theirs. My jar of gochujang is now almost a year old and still taste great. I've heard some of my friends' gochujang made by their moms are still there in their kimchi refrigerators, about several years and still is as good.

I've never made it, but if I understand correctly, making a traditional gochujang is pretty complicated. The first step is to make fermented soybean paste (doenjang) and that takes weeks and makes your house smell interesting. You could buy ready-made doenjang which would make this a lot easier. Then, for a basic gochujang, you would grind up the doenjang and blend in red pepper powder (gochu), salt, malt and rice powder.

Most store-bought gochujang nowadays is made from wheat, malt or sugar, water and red pepper powder, with little or no doenjang. It's got perservatives and lasts for months with no problem in the fridge.

Meju powder is hard to find online, you probably have to email kgrocer or koamart to have them send it to you. Meju karu is what you'd ask for in a Korean market. In English it's called fermented soy bean powder.

PS, I recommend that book if you want to learn how to cook authentic Korean cuisine.

Oh wow, thanks HKDave & porkfat! Now I know why AzianBrewer said it was an undertaking. Wow.

So is the red paste that served with bibimbap gochujang? Or is it something else? I'm sorry for my ignorance. I was told it was gochujang & thought that it would be better if I made it at home instead of buying the preservative filled stuff.

Oh wow, thanks HKDave & porkfat! Now I know why AzianBrewer said it was an undertaking. Wow.

So is the red paste that served with bibimbap gochujang? Or is it something else? I'm sorry for my ignorance. I was told it was gochujang & thought that it would be better if I made it at home instead of buying the preservative filled stuff.

It is the main component, sometimes it's the only thing. There are as many recipes for bibimbap topping as there is for bibimbap. Some add vinegar, some sugar, me personally, I add 4 or 5 parts kochujang to 1 part honey. But it all depends on what the kochujang tastes like initially. Each manufacturer makes a different kind with different ingredients. So many add monosodium glutamate. I hunt down the ones that don't (on the labels anyway, and we know how accurate those translated labels are). That's why I decided to make my own from that book. So I KNOW for sure what goes into it.

Oh wow, thanks HKDave & porkfat! Now I know why AzianBrewer said it was an undertaking. Wow.

So is the red paste that served with bibimbap gochujang? Or is it something else? I'm sorry for my ignorance. I was told it was gochujang & thought that it would be better if I made it at home instead of buying the preservative filled stuff.

some serve straight up gochujang from the container with bibimbap (thats how I like it) or they make a mixture of gochujang with vinegar and sugar or one or the other. I have heard of koreans making homemade daengjang but never gochujang and I wonder why? It seems as though the latter would be easier

My question is: How long will Gochujang last outside the refrigerator. I just bought a tub of chapssal gochujang (about 1.5 kilos, I think) and haven't opened it yet. It's pretty big for my refrigerator and I wonder how long it will last outside the fridge. I've heard gochujang gets to taste less good when it has been in the store a long time - I've had it that tastes too much like yeast (or Vitamin B). This sweet rice variety may be different though - anyway, has anyone left their pepper paste out for a substantial period of time, and what was the result.

Meju powder is hard to find online, you probably have to email kgrocer or koamart to have them send it to you. Meju karu is what you'd ask for in a Korean market. In English it's called fermented soy bean powder.

PS, I recommend that book if you want to learn how to cook authentic Korean cuisine.

Meju powder is hard to find online, you probably have to email kgrocer or koamart to have them send it to you. Meju karu is what you'd ask for in a Korean market. In English it's called fermented soy bean powder.

PS, I recommend that book if you want to learn how to cook authentic Korean cuisine.

Hey Porkfat? Hows the rest of that cookbook?

Glorfied:

I like this cookbook. Now I don't cook much out of it mainly because I was taught so by my mother, and use it for reference or inspiration. I have cooked a little bit from this book and enjoyed them a lot! This book has a lot of ingredients per recipe than a lot of korean cookbooks out there, because of this a lot of people dislike this book. I think this book is better off with people who don't mind using 12 ingredients and prepping them. There is very few photographs, and less so of the food, and they are not in color. Which turned off a lot of folks who were just beginning to explore korean cooking. So if you don't mind the extra work and no pics, the cookbook I think is pretty solid.

I also like the book because it is fun to read.

I think this comes close to a favourite korean cookbook, but I like them all for different reasons.

Phage:

I think you can keep the gochujang outside for awhile if it is commercially made. But how long I am not so sure. It might discolor on top but it is still good. We have in our family scraped away any mold that grew on our gochujang and ate it, but it was homemade, and well we haven't died yet. But now my parents have two frigerators one for everyday most used stuff, and the rest for gallons of kimchi, dwenjjang, gochujang etc. I may be in your boat in a couple of months as my mother sent me a gallon of gochujang and I have a small frigerator myself.

How big is the jar of gochujang, and how much can you feasably place in your fridge in smaller containers? I have left out commercially prepared gochujang for month or so, but not so much after that. Sorry if I didn't quite answer your question.

I think you can keep the gochujang outside for awhile if it is commercially made. But how long I am not so sure. It might discolor on top but it is still good. We have in our family scraped away any mold that grew on our gochujang and ate it, but it was homemade, and well we haven't died yet. But now my parents have two frigerators one for everyday most used stuff, and the rest for gallons of kimchi, dwenjjang, gochujang etc. I may be in your boat in a couple of months as my mother sent me a gallon of gochujang and I have a small frigerator myself.

How big is the jar of gochujang, and how much can you feasibly place in your fridge in smaller containers? I have left out commercially prepared gochujang for month or so, but not so much after that. Sorry if I didn't quite answer your question.

Well, I'll have more room when I finish up the old kimchi (just got a new gallon of it). And the strange somewhat newer kimchi I got at a Vietnamese supermarket in Portland a while back - not terrible but just something else - a bit sweet, I don't know what all - though not as weird as the jar I got labeled "Vietnamese kimchi" that contains radish floating in a black liquid with a licorice flavor.

Maybe I can get half the gochujang in the fridge, then have the other half out where I'll see it constantly and therefore be tempted to put it in everything I cook. Well, okay, not everything, but a lot....

Old post I know but I thought I would throw in my two cents. I recently made gochujang with Maangchi from Maangchi.com - it is outside in an eight litre onngi fermenting at the moment. It will be ready to eat in about 3 months. The initial taste is very much like hot pepper flakes (gochugaru) but in time it should settle down to a smoother flavor. I also added some Maeshil (매실) to mine which is green plum syrup - it adds a slightly richer flavor and sweetens it a little. When I was last in Korea I bought hand made gochujang from Seoil farms (just outside of Seoul in Anseong) - it is the most incredible thing I have ever eaten and shows just how appalling the store bought stuff is. It is much darker in color and has so many layers of flavor it is incredible. If you speak Korean you might be able to buy some online on their website - I strongly recommend it. http://kgfarm.gg.go.kr/farm/00059/

Oh - and to answer an earlier question - gochujang can be kept in an earthenware pot outside indefinitely. If made correctly (with sufficient salt) it shouldn't go off at all.

Wow. To me make gochujang and dwenjang is too daunting. I have a lot of respect who can do it. Please post pictures and experience as I would love to know. My mom never attempted this. We've always bought it. How do I have very fuzzy memories of my grandmother making these and putting them in to jar (they were bigger then me but I was only 4 or 5). This was a long long time ago.

I would love to hear how it goes for you.

btw, on the origional question, I don't keep kochujang in the fridge and I've never had it go bad (this include the home made stuff I buy from church).

I think that video and recipe are the quick method to make it. To really make it you need to ferment soybeans - into a miso-like product, Doenjang.

I have the book:Traditional Korean Cooking, by Noh Chin-Hwa which has a sort of roundabout description - it's missing parts and poorly translated in places. However, I really like the three books in this series - They are much more thorough than those in my other books - and have photos (so if you can't understand the instructions you can see it and maybe figure it out).

The book then describes how to make Meju (fermented soybean cakes), Toenjang, and Gochujang (spelled Koch' ujang there).

Toenjang is just the Doenjang spelled differently. It is the sediment from soaking the meju and making Korean soy sauce. The sediment is then salted and chiles added and allowed to mature, while the Gochujang uses the malt and glutinous rice method (like that in the video). I actually think you could make Gochujang by just adding ingredients to it (like the glutinous rice and malt mixture, but I'm not sure, I'm getting this from my beer-making, fermented food making, and Internet Korean food history reading experience)

From what I gather the Doenjang is made from Meju - blocks of the fermented soybeans. The recipes for Gochujang call for fermented soybean powder, and I am not sure if you use the Meju or the dried sediment from the next step (sort of pre-Doenjang). It sounds like from the above posts that Meju is used - I would have thought my book would say it that way, but like I said it's a bit scattered.

I would love it if someone could clarify this even more. I am not sure I'm going to attempt any of this. I do have lots of chiles from my garden to make into something though!

Oh and the straw is likely rice straw - hard to come by here in the US (except in a few areas like CA, AR, SC, parts of TX, etc.). I would use clean tall grass that I gathered from non-sprayed areas. A wheatgrass or rygrass relative should work well (there are lots of weeds in this category that are common around the US). Commercial barley, wheat, rye, or oats could work, but are often sprayed. It should have the same microflora. If you can't find large enough parts to use, just crush some and sprinkle it on the cakes.